The strategy behind political ads

Political advertising is our window into a campaign’s war room — the strategizing and decision-making process. It’s the “tell” of presidential politics.

A campaign’s ads reveal the success of its fundraising, or lack thereof; float the messages it believes will win with voters; and shows who and where those voters are.

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Super PAC activity is part of this tell. Technically, super PACs are independent operators. Functionally, however, they advance a candidate’s interests.

Ads give political reporters and analysts crucial clues about a campaign’s polling, fundraising and focus grouping. Yet this trove of information is often underappreciated and overlooked.

Instead, political analysts usually discuss advertising’s impact on a presidential race in terms of states and dollars. Specifically, money committed — ad buys placed with TV stations which have yet to be spent — in key primary or swing states.

This is an incorrect framework. First, the battlefields are media markets — not states. Markets do not adhere to state lines. Florida voters, for example, live in 10 different markets. Pricing of commercial time differs from one to the next.

Second, in terms of committed dollars, known as “the competitive,” it is important to know the media markets where a campaign or super PAC decides to spend. This strategic decision is part of the tell — but not the whole picture.

It’s like counting bombs without knowing whether they have exploded on target. An ad buy that is placed may not be fully executed for any number of reasons — the advertiser could be bluffing, for example, or has decided to divert resources elsewhere.

In fact, the only certainty offered by competitive data is that the intention to bomb exists.

To assess presidential campaign advertising in terms of competitive and states is to miss or mischaracterize most of the story. The true significance of advertising lies in:

• Message and tone — which reflect a campaign’s survey research

• Daypart — the time of day when ads air, which points to a campaign’s targeted voters

• Spot count by market, which — rather than dollars — is the best unit of measurement in weighing advertising’s effect and the relative attention being paid to different areas.

TONE AND FOCUS

Knowing the identity of an ad’s sponsor is valuable — particularly with the proliferation of super PACs. But in a race with multiple advertisers, it is more important to understand a sponsor’s message and how it contributes to the climate of the race.

The Iowa caucus results, for example, closely track how the advertising unfolded. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich was the focus of about half of all ads aired before the caucuses, and the vast majority were negative.

By contrast, Romney was not the sole target of any negative ads by his rivals or their super PACs. The second- and third-place finishers in Iowa also were attacked relatively little.

Not until Jan. 7 did a GOP candidate — Gingrich, in the Columbia, S.C., market — launch an ad attacking Romney alone. His salvo was quickly overshadowed by talk of a pro-Gingrich super PAC spending millions of dollars.

This snapshot of ad tone and focus in one Iowa media market says it all:

Tone and focus are also key to assessing the effect of super PACs and other outside advertisers. The more these outside groups enter the fray, the more mixed the messages may become. They could undercut the impact of one side’s advertising.

In 2004, for example, Sen. John Kerry’s campaign and Democratic-leaning groups spent more on advertising than President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign and like-minded GOP groups. Yet the pro-Bush forces had a bigger impact.